ISLAMABAD

Pakistan’s push toward fully digital education services faced fresh criticism after the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) online degree attestation portal reportedly became inaccessible, triggering complaints from students across the country.

The disruption comes only days after HEC announced that the degree attestation process had been shifted entirely online to facilitate students and eliminate the need for physical visits to HEC offices.

However, students attempting to access the e-services portal on Thursday evening were met with repeated “This site can’t be reached” and “ERR_TIMED_OUT” errors, raising concerns over the reliability of the country’s digital infrastructure.

Dozens of students took to social media and online forums complaining that the website had stopped responding, leaving pending degree attestations and urgent applications stuck amid growing frustration.

The outage has reignited debate over Pakistan’s broader “Digital Pakistan” ambitions, with users questioning how large-scale digital transformation initiatives can succeed if critical government platforms remain unstable during peak usage.

Students said the failure of the portal has created uncertainty for applicants seeking urgent attestation for scholarships, foreign admissions and employment verification processes.

The Higher Education Commission had earlier promoted the fully online attestation system as a major step toward modernising public services and improving ease of access for students nationwide.

Technology experts say government digital platforms frequently face scalability and infrastructure challenges after major online rollouts due to inadequate server capacity, traffic management and cybersecurity preparedness.

As of late Thursday, the HEC portal remained inaccessible for many users, while no formal clarification had yet been issued regarding the cause of the outage or the expected restoration timeline.